The Wild Center in Adirondack Park

An amazing place to visit in upstate New York.

At the Wild Center, deep in the heart of the Adirondacks of upstate New York, it’s not unusual to see a curator wandering the premises with a raven perched on his forearm. In the galleries surrounding a soaring central court, you’ll hear peeps, screeches and birdcalls — both simulated and real — typical of the forests and streams of this sprawling wilderness. And if you sit down to lunch in the center’s café, you’ll be at water level with a man-made pond and might even catch sight of a graceful egret or paddling painted turtle. The 54,000-square-foot main building of the Wild Center was designed to celebrate and explicate the natural wonders of Adirondack Park, an area encompassing more than 9,000 square miles, making it larger than the state of Vermont or five major national parks combined. To early European settlers, this irregular jumble of lakes, rivers and mountains was largely an impenetrable wilderness; even the Native Americans skirted the region, calling the few who lived in the area Ratirontaks, or “tree eaters,” perhaps because they were such inept hunters. – From WSJ